Fastac (BASF)
Insecticide. Active ingredient: alpha-Cypermethrin. If the bees get into direct contact to it, they die off quickly. So if this is sprayed onto blossoming crops like canola, you'll get some damage. The damage is much worse if this stuff is mixed with fungicides! This stuff should be sprayed in the late evening after most bees have returned to the hive to avoid unnecessary losses. It will leak into the honey of course one way or the other.

EXPRESSE (Laudis Expresse?)
Contains a herbicide.

Folicur (Bayer, also sold by Syngenta)
Fungicide. Active ingredient: Tebuconazol.

Thank you for the info.
He sprayed Fastac in 2013 September on Canola.
I wonder if these pesticides get broken down in the soil fast or do they sit in there like Neonics do?

This year he has Wheat and I asked him not to spray which he respects but this field of mine is not the only one around here So much Canola this year! Itsin full bloom now so I hope they dont spray it now.

Fastac is water based, so most probably washes out after some time. Fastac is a pyrethroid. Fungicides make it more sticky and resident on the plants. Also the repellent effect of Fastac is lowered by the mixture with fungicides. Usually they do mix it with fungicides when spraying in the full bloom!

I have some farmers near me who use Fastac, too. The (visible) effects on bees are low if not sprayed during daylight. I talked to the farmers and they do spray at nighttime or late evening. Which helps a little but it is way better than spray during daylight.

You better ask for the seed coating that has been used. I talked to 14 farmers growing canola near my apiaries. None of them actually knew what kind of seed coating has been used. All of them had the neonic Clothiandin as seed coating for their canola. One farmer has heared of it, all the others did not know nothing about Clothiandin. They also did not know about the systemic action of this stuff. They were told, the effect of the seed coating is just for three weeks. Which is why they have to spray when the blossoming starts and another time in full bloom.

There is lot of misinformation out there. The best is to start talking to the farmers. Don't preach, just inform yourself and give some feedback. Slow progress is better than no progress.

Misinformation about gm etc is even worse in India, Listening to the radio the other morning there was a programme detailing how the Times of India has, "paid news." This included an article about how cotton farmers were getting rich with BT cotton. The same article was later reprinted as an advert. Needless to say the claims made were not realised by the farmers who fell for it.

Children in agricultural areas are being exposed to a dangerous cocktail of pesticides, some of which are banned substances, the French environment group Génération Futures claimed.
Group analysed the hair of children aged between 3 and 10 living or studying near farms and vineyards (no more than 200 metres away) after parents expressed worries about exposure to poisons that could disrupt their endocrine systems. (Report in Guardian International April 30th 2014.)

Our on-going joke, which now seems a bit poignant, is that farmers having been exposed to so many pesticides over the years become crazy undertaking activities that are wrecking the environment.

I met the local farmers wife in the shop and she was there with her kid. I said hi and she replied but with very little interest to continue talking to me He must have told her about me asking too many questions about his pesticide-use habit.

My wife and I cant get kids but we do think of all the kids exposed to poisons. What I cant understand is people with kids not being able to see the threat and keep exposing their kids to pesticides through food or through their immediate environment

Che - I worked at a small airport many years ago, and used to fuel the local crop duster. He'd tell me of farms that all the kids (from the farmers family) would run right out to the edge of the field when he came to spray. I can still smell the nasty chemicals he used to carry, some would burn my nose and throat. I think mainly he carried Roundup, but I know one he sprayed right at harvest season was a defoliator to make it easier for the field workers to see the chiles.

Makes you wonder if our governments are all psychopats allowing folk to spread poison all over the world ... It is obvious that farmers dont even know what they are spraying. They know whats it for but have no idea what the active ingredience is.

Denmark has got a minister now who wants Denmark to be all organic and pesticide free. Lets see if he can make the change. He sure has the money and power to make it true. But we cant wait for them to fix the problem since many depend on the tax money from pesticide companies.

It seems we need total paradigm shift where benefit for natural world is placed before the profit orientated mind!

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Quality Top Bar Hives by Andrew Vidler

Conserving wild bees

Research suggests that bumble bee boxes have a very low success rate in actually attracting bees into them. We find that if you create an environment where first of all you can attract mice inside, such as a pile of stones, a drystone wall, paving slabs with intentionally made cavities underneath, this will increase the success rate.

Most bumble bee species need a dry space about the size a football, with a narrow entrance tunnel approximately 2cm in diameter and 20 cm long. Most species nest underground along the base of a linear feature such as a hedge or wall. Sites need to be sheltered and out of direct sunlight.